FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contacts:
Peter LaVenia, Co-chair, GPNY [email protected]
Gloria Mattera, Co-chair, GPNY [email protected]; 917-886-4538
The Green Party of New York State today extended its deepest sympathies to the family of Erica Garner. Party officials said that Ms. Garner was a leading voice in the struggle against police brutality since her father, Eric Garner, died at the hands of NYC police in 2014. Party leaders noted the movement against police brutality had lost a leading light, but that it would continue to organize while remembering Erica and her father.
“Hearing the news of Erica Garner’s death is truly devastating,” said James Lane, 2015 Green Party Congressional candidate. “I first met Erica during my run for Congress in her district against the DA that failed to bring a conviction against the NYPD officers who murdered her father, Eric Garner in July of 2014. On our first meeting I remember telling her how I see so much of her father while looking into her eyes and that how we hoped to finally bring justice to their family. Sadly, it seems that the unfairness of the tragedy that left a family without their father has passed down generationally to now leave a family without their very young mother.”
Across the state, Green Party members have actively supported and participated in the Black Lives Matter movement. In 2016, the party was honored to have Erica speak at Hostos College for a Stein/Baraka Presidential campaign rally. Erica spoke about refuting the politics of fear and refusing to back down in the face of a corrupt political system--in the same way she refused to back down from challenging a corrupt criminal justice system.
“Our hearts are full of sadness right now for the entire Garner family in their loss of Erica,” added Lane. “Now, to have her leave us without ever seeing justice being served for her father and imagining the pain that her own children will be going through over the years, is truly more than any family should have to deal with. Today we mourn for Erica, her father and the entire Garner Family but we must never stop fighting for justice in their honor.”